In 2004, North Korea demanded Team America be banned in the Czech Republic. “It harms the image of our country,” a North Korean diplomat said then. “Such behavior is not part of our country’s political culture. Therefore, we want the film to be banned.”

“Obviously, it’s absurd to demand that in a democratic country,” a spokesman for the Czech foreign ministry said at the time.

This time, the North Koreans didn’t ask nicely. In July, a North Korean diplomat told the United Nations that The Interview “should be regarded as the most undisguised sponsoring of terrorism as well as an act of war.”

Sony emails unearthed by The Daily Beast this week showed the studio screened a rough cut—and it's face-melting assassination scene—for two U.S. State Department officials who apparently blessed it.